An experienced British NASA astronaut, who was born in Lincolnshire, has retired from the agency after 30 years.

Michael Foale CBE, born in Louth, has managed 375 days in space, visits to the Russian Space Station Mir, the International Space Station (ISS) and six shuttle missions.

These missions included repairing and upgrading the Hubble Space Telescope and studying solar interaction with the atmosphere.

He also did four space walks over his career, amounting to 23 hours.

In the suit-up room at Kennedy Space Center, Michael Foale smiles as a suit technician helps him don his launch and entry suit before liftoff on the STS-103 mission in December 1999. Photo: NASA

Michael Foale’s work at the American space agency has included chief of the Astronaut Office Expedition Corps, assistant director (technical) of the agency’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, and deputy associate administrator for exploration operations at NASA Headquarters in Washington.

Most recently, he helped Soyuz and ISS operations, and space station spacewalk activity and spacesuit development.

Michael Foale, Expedition 8 mission commander and NASA ISS science officer, works with the Russian biomedical “Pilot” experiment (MBI-15) in the Zvezda Service Module on the International Space Station (ISS) in 2003. Photo: NASA

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